International news of week

Digest of international news for week Jun 14- Jun 20, 2014

Saturday

Kabul: Millions of Afghans turned out to vote today in a presidential run-off election despite Taliban threats and violence that killed nearly 50 people ahead of the withdrawal of NATO troops later this year.

Novohannivka (Ukraine): Pro-Russia separatists shot down a Ukrainian military transport plane today, killing all 49 crew and troops aboard in a bloody escalation of the conflict in the country’s restive east.

Tehran: Iran may consider cooperating with its arch-foe the United States to fight Sunni extremist militants in Iraq but has not yet been asked to intervene, President Hassan Rouhani says.

Sunday

Islamabad: Pakistan today launched the much-awaited military operation against foreign and local militants hiding in sanctuaries near the Afghan border, a week after the Pakistani Taliban brazenly attacked the Karachi airport.

Kuala Lumpur: Malaysia today vowed to hunt Flight MH370 missing for the past 100 days with “renewed vigour”, even as two authors of a yet to be released book on the plane sensationally claimed that its disappearance was “deliberate” and “calculated”.

Thimphu: Prime Minister Narendra Modi today met Bhutanese King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuk and the two discussed an entire gamut of ties to cement the “unique and special” bilateral relationship.

Monday

Thimphu: Prime Minister Narendra Modi today concluded his “extremely successful” first foreign visit since assuming office with a message to Bhutan and other neighbouring countries that a strong and prosperous India was in their interest.

Islamabad: Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif says he will not allow Pakistan to become a “sanctuary of terrorists” and asserted that the military operation against the Taliban in North Waziristan tribal region would continue until militants are eliminated.

Baghdad: Sunni militants captured a strategic northern Iraqi city along the highway to Syria today, sending thousands of residents from an ethnic minority fleeing for safety and moving closer to their goal of linking areas under their control on both sides of the border.

Tuesday

New York: Rajat Gupta, a one-time poster boy of Indians in America and former Goldman Sachs Director, today began his two-year prison sentence after fighting a protracted legal battle to clear his name in one of the biggest insider trading schemes in US history.

Kabul: Abducted Indian aid worker Alexis Prem Kumar in Afghanistan is safe and India is confident of getting him rescued unharmed soon, according to a top Indian diplomat here.

Wednesday

Kabul: Afghan President Hamid Karzai says the US-led “war on terror” after 9/11 should not have been fought in his country but in “sanctuaries beyond our borders”, a clear indication to Pakistan which has been repeatedly accused of harbouring the Taliban and al-Qaeda.

Colombo: Sri Lankan parliament overwhelmingly voted not to allow the UNHRC team into the country to investigate alleged human rights abuses during the last phase of the civil war against the LTTE.

Kabul: Afghan presidential run-off candidate Abdullah Abdullah alleged massive election fraud and demanded an immediate halt to vote-counting amid reports that his rival had a million-vote lead, plunging the war-torn country’s first democratic transition of power into question.

Thursday

Washington: The US is prepared to carry out “targeted and precise military action” in Iraq if required, President Barack Obama says.

Peshawar: About 100,000 people have fled the troubled North Waziristan tribal region as curfew was relaxed in the area where the Pakistan Army has launched an all-out offensive against the Taliban, officials says.

Washington: India-born plant scientist Sanjaya Rajaram has been named the winner of the USD 250,000 World Food Prize for his breakthrough achievement in increasing global wheat production by more than 200 million tonnes following the Green Revolution.

Friday

Washington: US President Barack Obama has made it clear that American combat troops will not return to Iraq to fight the Islamic militants, who have seized a section of the country, but assured Baghdad of launching “targeted and precise military action” if required.

Sydney: The search for the missing Flight MH370 will now revert to an area hundreds of kilometers south of the first suspected crash site, an official says, as months of fruitless scouring in the Indian Ocean has failed to crack the unprecedented aviation mystery.

Baghdad: Iraq’s top Shiite cleric urged all of its people today to unite and expel Sunni Muslim insurgents, as Shiite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki came under growing pressure at home and abroad.